Rebel

Chapter 2: Coming Home

The ride to Reggie's consisted of us hanging on for dear life as Rachel hit every single pothole on the way there. It was a surprise that she hadn't killed us yet. Even though she ended up with a speeding ticket every other day when the speed limit throughout the entire town was twenty-five, her parents never cracked down and snatched her keys. In their eyes she could get all the tickets in the world and they would pay them off as long as she wasn't seeing Reggie.

He wasn't a bad guy. He was just incredibly too old for her. Unlike with me, we all refused to tell her what to do. We never told her that he could get arrested and end up as a registered sex offender if her parents were to find out about them. We all knew what kind of chances the two of them were taking, but we just enjoyed seeing her happy.

"Derek can meet us there with a few bottles," Mel said as she texted faster than the speed of light on her phone. That was a relief. "Awww! But I like playing 'Hello Titty' with the cashier!" Rachel whined. We all stared at her like she was insane. "Girl, what the hell is wrong with you?!" I shouted over the wind whipping through the open windows.

The usual cashier was gross. He was obviously middle aged and didn't take care of himself very well. He was overweight, going bald, and always wearing a white t-shirt with a different mysterious stain on the front of it every time we stopped by there. In all honesty, Rachel was attracted to older men because of her daddy issues. She was raised by her mom and step-dad after her biological father skipped out of her life when she was only ten. She had a close relationship with her dad one minute where they would talk every day, she would tell him her secrets and he'd guard them with his life even though they were small, and he treated her like a princess. Next thing you know, he leaves her mom and now she maybe hears from him once or twice a year. That threw her into deep depression.

She longed for that father figure and sadly she went looking for it in a boyfriend. It wasn't bad when she was around Reggie. It always seemed like he was just one of us. It got gross when she tried to show off for old guys like the one at the gas station where we were always able to get a few bottles without being carded. It was already bad that he was selling alcohol to minors but we clearly saw that he was a pedophile. He creeped me out to the point that I simply referred to him as Al and I kept my distance.

I was nervous the whole ride there and I was fighting hard to keep everyone from noticing. But they already knew. I never knew what these nights had in store for me. I didn't know if I would be able to power through the lonliness or if I was going to spend the night hugging the toilet. My friends always hoped that it would end up pushing me to talk to someone and get to the know them to keep my mind off of things, but I wasn't really into it. One night stands weren't my thing and everyone else was only concerned with getting high. I could easily focus on watching my back when I was drinking, but when I finally went down, at least it was in the safety of Reggie's house and I'd usually end the night curled up in his extra bedroom with everyone guarding me with their lives. I didn't feel good about the fact that people had to kind of baby sit me, but they didn't mind. At least all of them didn't mind except for Candace. Sometimes I thought that she secretly had it out for me, but I often attributed that to my constant paranoia because I had trust issues. I gave her the benefit of the doubt because she was one of the most important people I had in my life.

We pulled into Reggie's yard where he and Derek were lounging on the stone steps in front of his house. The two of them were smoking cigarettes and my craving for nicotine kicked in. I don't know what the hell happened on this crazy journey to me being so screwed up, but somewhere along the way, I picked up a pack of menthol cigarettes and I became a chain smoker. I had Al to thank for that. He was the only person that would sell them to me. I always hoped that he didn't expect any favors in return. Because of Rachel, he always looked at us like he was waiting for something like that to happen.